Pillar in the Sea
by Nilly's Issue
Summary: Steve is feverish, and Bruce is patient. They will both be okay.


**This is set in the magical MCU of my brain, wherein the Avengers stayed together after the events of the first Avengers movie**

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"Tell-. Tell them to go to the hill," Steve says. He rolls his head back and forth on the pillow. His pale skin glistens in the light of the bedside lamp. Bruce huffs fondly; they've been through this one before. He unfurls his newspaper again with a flick of his wrist. The noise is pleasant and comfortable in the quiet of the room. Steve turns toward Bruce again, rubbing his eye against the pillow as he does so. Bruce smiles. "Are you—are you gonna tell them?" Steve asks.

"I already did," Bruce reassures. Steve nods with a jerk, like he's unsure about what he just affirmed, but he's agreeing anyway.

Steve's hand, bandaged tightly around the wrist, drags up his stomach and rubs idly at his chest. "Why am I here?" he asks, eyebrows furrowing. His level of coherency has been jumping up and down all afternoon, and Bruce figures that he's just filtering through what he dreams about and what he sees. Steve dreams about being in the war, and Bruce was worried that they would dissolve into nightmares, but for some unknown reason they don't. Steve dreams about his Commandos in present time, so when he floats back to awareness, they haven't died yet. The unconscious loneliness of this makes Bruce's heart twinge, but Steve seems to be unaware of his own loss. When he's awake for a few minutes, he starts to question why he's laid up in bed.

"You...got lost," Bruce says. His voice slips into a darker tone than he'd like. In reality, Steve hadn't been so much lost as he'd been completely disorientated and bleeding from the stomach. He had been in Alaska to investigate a possible HYDRA lead that had an undercover base there. In their alarm, they had blown up their entire facility. Steve had disappeared. That was what Bruce gathered from Natasha's rapid-fire explanation when she had called him and Tony. He can still remember the stumbling of her words when she repeated, reedy and desperate that, "He can't be dead, Bruce. He can't be dead." Tony and Bruce had flown there immediately.

He can remember (Bruce always remembers, everything, always) the way the coffee mug in Tony's hand had slipped down his two fingers, spilling brown liquid all over the floor. It had just hung there, forgotten, hooked over Tony's shock-slackened fingertip. Natasha had shown them the video of the explosion.

It took three days, but they found Steve. Propped up against a tree. By then, completely unresponsive and dying. The bullet had had time to fester; Steve hadn't had food or water in 72 hours; complications were begging to occur. Two days after they found him, one day after massive internal surgery to remove the bullet and repair the damage, Steve's immune system had fallen prey to a steady fever and resistant infection. The one positive of the situation was that, paradoxically, Steve's weakness allowed for pain medication to work effectively. His system was too tired to fend off much of anything.

But he was healing, and that was what mattered.

The room was lit by the warm yellow light that spilled over the plush carpet—Tony was thoughtful like that. The large window showcased the dreary afternoon sky as it drizzled rain over most of the city. Bruce had a newspaper, hot tea, and the steady reassurance of the heart monitor.

Relief was overwhelmingly soft and painful and sweet. He still couldn't sort it out in his head.

Steve sighed thickly next to Bruce, blinking languidly at the ceiling. He huffed out a breath, and a twitch rolled down his body. "I'm real hot," he said.

Bruce was momentarily caught between worry and amusement because Steve's distinct Brooklyn accent only slipped through when he was exceptionally exhausted. The biggest indicator was his disregard of the -_ly _in _really_. It was, quite frankly, horribly endearing. Glimpses of Steve as someone who wasn't impenetrable were rare, and they were to be cherished.

"You have a fever," Bruce explained. He put down the newspaper, dropped his feet from where they were propped on Steve's bed, and faced him. "Because you have an infection, remember?"

Steve grimaced. He wrinkled his nose, and when he turned his head away, Bruce watched a droplet of sweat roll down his temple. "Bein' warm is better than not," Steve pointed out, "but this is _really _warm." His eyes got wide as he said so.

Bruce wrung out the hand towel that he had dipped in the bowl of cold water and wiped off the sweat clinging to Steve's overheated skin. A relieved sigh tumbled from Steve's mouth, and he hummed in appreciation as Bruce gently cleansed away the moisture that had itched on his neck.

"Where am I?" Steve croaked. He focused in the general direction of Bruce's face, cheeks flushed pink.

For a brutal moment, Bruce was startled into silence as Steve gazed up at him. Blue eyes, simultaneously vividly blue and glazed with fever. The way his hospital gown pulled down by his neck, revealing the bruises that covered the protrusion of his collarbone. Steve and Captain America were so far apart from each other that Bruce could barely think around it. Steve wore Captain America so well that splitting the two hurt. Without Captain America, Steve was just a man, a young one at that. He had faults and insecurities and a horrifically shattered past. Bruce _knows _that the Avengers unconsciously rely on that: Steve's strength, seeming infallibility, someone who would consistently and honestly be right and true and good. So when Steve wasn't those, couldn't possible be, because he'd been _beaten_? It hurt.

That's what inspires the flaring protectiveness that the Avengers have around Steve. Total respect and admiration and camaraderie when he's healthy because that's what he deserves, what he wants. Righteous, barely controllable rage when he's not because an act against him is unconscionable. It was how they operated.

It almost sounded unhealthy, he knows. _Don't tip our pillar because we have to lean on it. _

But it wasn't, because Steve didn't want to be weak. He utterly rejected it. It was a triple-fold effect. Men in the 1940s were crushed if they showed emotion. He represented the entire country's idea of hope, of strength. Finally (and this made Bruce _hurt_, because he _understood_), Steve was tossed into the jumble of the new century, where the only thing that truly made him valuable here were his leadership skills. Weakness wasn't tolerated in a leader. Bruce knows this is how Steve thinks because Steve had told him. Hands in his pockets, proud and steady as he said, "The only reason I'm on this team, allowed to do what I do, is because of my past. They think I'm the best qualified to _lead _this team. Not fight on it. I'm—you all have much better technology than a super soldier. I can't waste this," Steve shook his head slowly, smiling and strained as he said quietly, "Can't lose this."

"Stark Tower," Bruce finally said. He absently wiped the towel down Steve's bicep, caught a droplet as it threatened to roll down towards his bandaged wrist.

Steve's eyes narrowed. "It's...2013," he said slowly.

"I'm afraid so."

Disappointment grew heavy and sad on Steve's face. He shifted restlessly. "It's not 1943."

"No, it's not."

Steve swallowed. "And everyone's gone?"

The clock ticked in the background. Bruce listened to himself breathe. He watched Steve's hand clutch the sheets and dig down into the bed. His knuckles were white.

"Oh," Steve said.

Bruce's stomach bottomed out. He reached forward, uncertain, and rested his hand on the bend in Steve's elbow. His pulse throbbed beneath Bruce's fingertips. Most things about Steve throbbed.

"Did you know that Peggy got married after I died?" Steve asks.

Bruce wets the towel again, makes the sweat droplets on Steve's forehead disappear.

"I didn't," he answers.

Steve turned his head away from Bruce and looked at the rain pattering on the window.

"I used to picture her in a wedding dress when things got tough during the war," Steve says. "When it felt like we were in hell, when I wanted them to just...end, I pictured her in a wedding dress." He sounds barren and fragile. "It was stupid," he mutters.

Bruce closes his eyes, breathes for awhile.

"I don't think it was stupid, Steve."

Steve blinks slowly. The world feels reduced to their room, reduced to the aching space between him and Steve.

"I wish I would have seen her in one," Steve adds. He shivers for a moment. "I bet she looked real pretty."

Bruce directs his gaze at the skyline. Doesn't know if he can meet Steve's eyes.

"I bet she did," Bruce rasps.

Steve sniffs. His lungs quake in his chest as exhales. "Woulda gone either way. Even if she wasn't marrying me. Just to see her in it."

He sounds so sincere that Bruce is overwhelmed by it. He pulls his sleeve over his fingers and wipes away the hot tears spilling from the corners of Steve's eyes. Steve swallows miserably and croaks, "I'm sorry." His features twist in grief. "Sorry."

Bruce gets up and sits on the bed, keeps his hand on Steve's temple.

"It's fine," he says. He lightly shakes Steve's head as the man tries to look away. "It's fine, Steve."

Steve inhales raggedly. "I just thought—I just thought we'd. That we would get married."

"I know you did, Steve."

The compassion in Bruce's voice seems to be what breaks Steve's embarrassment. Steve's eyes meet Bruce's, and they are blue and blurry and hurting. He shudders once, lets out one sound of blatant, agonized pain, and then tears steadily start falling down his temples.

Bruce waits him out. He worries that Steve's fever isn't going down, but when he peeks at Steve's vitals on his tablet, his temperature is only 103.4. High, but not too high for Steve's body. It's going down. He wipes the tears away as they come. Steve calms down as fast as he got worked up, and he looks exhausted and wilted in the wake of his emotions.

Steve reaches up and wipes the back of his hand across his eyes. "I think I'm on drugs," he supplements after he's gathered himself.

Bruce chuckles wetly and says, "Yes."

There's a long, drawn-out beat between them. He can practically taste it in the air. He can't define what it is, only that it is slow and tender and something weak in Bruce's chest feels stronger afterwards. When the atmosphere drains free of it, he gets off the bed and returns to his seat.

Steve's eyes have gone heavy-lidded and cloudy. Bruce gingerly sponges away the last of his tears and pulls the blanket back up to the man's shoulders. He checks the bandage on Steve's wrist for tightness, looks over the vitals that seem serene. Jarvis, because he is truly astounding, automatically turns down the lights.

Quickly flagging, Steve slurs, "Why'm I here again?"

"You live here," Bruce replies, puzzled.

"But," Steve whispers, his hand gestures vaguely at the monitor next to his bed, "you guys still have'ta sit here. Shouldn' I be at SHIELD's medical?"

Tony had been the deciding voice behind that decision. He'd been angry, bordering on distraught, after they had gotten Steve to safety and discovered that SHIELD had been responsible for setting off the charges early. He'd been _livid_. Bruce had rarely seen Tony that kind of angry, that kind of pulsating, insidiously silent rage. The SHIELD doctors themselves had barely protested when Tony informed that they were moving Steve into the Tower.

"We thought you'd feel better here," Bruce explains.

Steve blinks slowly. "Oh," he says.

The opening is wide and vulnerable, so Bruce takes it.

"You know, Steve," he starts. "Your family from 1943 is gone, but... But your family in 2012 is just down the hallway."

Steve smiles tiredly at him. "I know. I just, I forget sometimes. You guys 're the best—best thing that's happened to me in a long time."

"If it matters, I feel the same way. Now go to sleep," Bruce says.

The last thing Steve says before his eyes drift shut is a soft mumble of, "Of course you matter," and that seems to make all the difference.

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**Current Affliction: Writing Fic That Is Not Fic That Finishes Unfinished Fic**

**It's a terrible disease, really. **

**Anyways, this plot came to me when I was dress shopping for that insidious disease called prom and saw a wedding dress. Just sprung right up. I imagined that marriage was something that Steve epitomized during the war, simply because it promised constant security, love, and contentment, which are very hard to find during wartime. And what do people do after they go home from a war? They want to get married.**

**Enough rambling, tell me what think, loved, hated, and spilled from your tear ducts. Thank you for reading!**


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